Recently, apparatus having a construction as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3 has been developed by the present inventors, as an apparatus for supplying columnar or cylindrical articles 1 (referred to simply as "article 1", hereinunder), such as cylindrical chip resistors as shown in FIG. 1.
More specifically, a base 4 is attached to the upper end of a shaft 3 extending vertically through a main body 2, and a cam follower 6 is fitted in a groove 5 formed on the side surface of the base 4. A lever 8 is connected at its one end to the cam follower 6 and is pivotally mounted at its mid portion on the main body 2, while the other end is connected to a pneumatic cylinder 7 so that the base 4 can be moved up and down by the actuation of the pneumatic cylinder 7. A plurality of hoppers 9 are disposed along straight lines on the base 4, and pipes 11 secured upright to the main body 2 are fitted in through holes 10 formed in the centers of lower surfaces of the hoppers 9, while chutes 12 in the form of coiled springs are connected to the lower ends of the pipes 11. The lower ends of the chutes 12 are connected to article holes 14 of an escapement block 13. A pusher 16 having article holding holes 15 is disposed in sliding contact with the underside of the escapement block 13 in such a manner as to be pushed by a push rod 17 and returned by a spring 18. A lower chute 20 provided at its end with a through hole 19 for receiving the articles 1 is disposed in contact with the underside of the pusher 16. A chuck 22 is connected to the lower end of each through hole 19 through a receptacle 21. A stopper 23 is provided on the lower portion of the chuck 22. The chuck 22 is constructed to be movable horizontally so as to be able to transfer the article to a pickup chuck 24 by which the article 1 is supplied to, for example, a printed circuit board board 25.
In this supplying apparatus, each pipe 11 is moved into and out of each hopper 9 accomodating a number of articles 1 by the base 4 which is moved up and down by the operation of the pneumatic cylinder 7, so that an article 1 comes into the pipe 11 and drops into the article 14 in the escapement block 13 through the chute 12. The article 1 then falls into the article holding hole 15 of the pusher 16 coaxial with the article hole 14. Then, as the push rod 17 is actuated, the pusher 16 with the articles 1 held therein is slid in order to convey the articles 1 into the through hole 19 of the lower chute 20, from which the articles 1 are fed into the chuck 22 through the receptacles 21.
With this arrangement, the hoppers 9 are arranged in alignment as shown in FIG. 4, so that a large space is occupied by the apparatus as a whole. If the articles 1 are picked up at one location by the chuck 22, the pick up operation will be effected by moving the set of hoppers. In such a case, it is required that a distance D through which the set of hoppers are moved from one extreme position to the other extreme position be twice the entire length of the set of hoppers. This arrangement disadvantageously requires a substantially long period of time for supplying a plurality of articles 1 of different types to a small printed circuit board or the like. Furthermore, it is difficult to increase the speed of supply due to the fact that articles 1 drop by gravity from the lower chute 20 to the chuck 22.